There are two hot topics in the chip business now. The most interesting one is the manic effort by Intel to get into the low-power laptop game in a big way. Intel must obviously be freaked out by the low-power devices of upstart Transmeta. Intel has made various pronouncements promising to deliver a 1-volt part that burns juice at about 1.5 watts. I assume that someday some-one will promise a part that uses no energy. Maybe we should add that to the ever-growing list of grand dreams like perpetual-motion machines, antigravity devices, and cold fusion.

This rush toward low power stems from the fact that new research indicates that the thin and light segments of the ever-growing and lucrative laptop business will soon amount to 60 percent of the market. And about time! Many of us have been boosting this segment since its inception, starting with the NEC UltraLite and Texas Instruments TravelMate 2000, which were classics in their eras.

The other hot ticket in the semiconductor arena is the never-ending dream of the CMOS sensor. As many of you know, CMOS memory is light-sensitive and can be turned into a sensor that can replace CCDs in cameras. While not nearly as good as a CCDs, the CMOS sensor is dirt-cheap and can be produced in huge volumes. This is largely because the process of making these chips is a standard run-of-the-mill anyone-can-do-it semiconductor fabrication process. But so what? When the sensor is used in a camera application, the resolution is usually low and a lot of electronic noise is present, so a lot of off-chip processing is required to clean up an image. This additional circuitry adds to the cost of the camera, somewhat negating the CMOS price/performance edge. Over the past four years I've heard about killer CMOS cameras coming out any day now. What I see is nothing competitive. And I have yet to see any CMOS-driven image that's worth a powder.

But I suppose for a cheap Web camera, or even a disposable device of the future, the CMOS sensor may work out. According to Cahners In-Stat Group, the market for this sensor is already at $1 billion in annual revenues.

Perhaps this will end up segmenting the market for cameras, with cheap cameras on the low end and "real" cameras on the high end. The price point for a state-of-the-art semipro digital camera hovers around $1,000, and such a camera still does not deliver an image to match what a good 35-mm camera can do. But the gap is narrowing. I have discussed this with engineers over the last few years, and the magic number of pixels that should be necessary to match 35-mm film quality seems to be 8 megapixels. With 3.3 megapixels now quite common, and 4-plus-megapixel cameras coming your way soon, we are probably only two years away from this magic number. It remains to be seen if the digital camera companies will take development any further. For marketing reasons I assume they will. With any luck new advancements in compression will lessen the memory requirements, which can get out of control quickly because of the density of image files.

Futureworld Dept.: I wonder when a robotic dog will be programmed to attack! We may find out sooner rather than later, as Sony goes full steam ahead with its popular robot dog, the Sony Aibo. The first version, which sold for a whopping $2,500, has been upgraded, and the price has dropped to $1,500. The kicker is that the newer versions of the dog, which can be reprogrammed and changed via a memory stick, are designed for volume production. In fact, according to one report, Sony intends to push this technology to the point where the dogs will sell for less than $100. The first version of the Aibo sold about 45,000 units and was in great demand. The new pooch is targeted to ramp up to a maximum of 60,000 units sold a month. The pooch is supposed to get down to $100 by the year 2010, according to projections from Sony. I think it would be funny if the dog pooped out little dead batteries around the house as a gag. Realism counts.

Interesting Tidbit Dept.: Now, I'm wondering if there are any economists who read Inside Track, because I have a request for numbers. I was reading through an old Stuart Chase book written in the depths of the Depression, and he pointed out some interesting stats regarding the use of energy per citizen in 1830 compared with 1930. A study was cited, done by A.B. Lamb of Harvard, which said this:

The maximum potential energy of high handicraft cultures, including manpower, work animals, windmills, waterwheels, etc., is about 4000 kilogram calories per capita per day. This is our 1830 base. In 1929, the energy in terms of coal, oil, natural gas, and water power actually consumed was 156,000 kilogram calories per capita per day.

What a huge increase! Chase's point is that we waste a lot of energy. But what can the number possibly be today? Has any economist kept up with this kind of calculation? This could be monitored in real time by computers, it seems to me. Anyone with a thought on this, please send a note to me at energy@dvorak.org.

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About the Author

John Dvorak is a columnist for PCMag.com and the host of the weekly TV video podcast CrankyGeeks. His work is licensed around the world. Previously a columnist for Forbes, Forbes Digital, PC World, Barrons, MacUser, PC/Computing, Smart Business and other magazines and newspapers. Former editor and consulting editor for Infoworld. Has appeared in th... See Full Bio

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